“Follow your passions,” they say. But what do passions arise from?

At almost every commencement address, the speaker urges the new graduates to follow their passions. It seems almost cruel. The schools at which I’ve heard these speeches seem to be deliberately designed to prevent the development of passionate interests. If all you’ve been doing is what you're told you must do, which compels you to suppress your own wishes and interests, then how do you have any idea what your passions might be? Suddenly, after 13 years (K - 12) or, more likely, 17 years (K - college) of being scheduled in such a way that you have almost no time for your own interests, you are exhorted to go out and follow your passions! Are they serious?

If educational institutions were really concerned about passions, you'd think they'd allow young people an opportunity to find and develop those passions. That means lots of time and freedom to play and pursue activities that are self-chosen and personally meaningful rather than engage continuously in activities that everyone acknowledges serve only to get through the next in an apparently endless series of hoops toward some unknown or non-existent end.

Play, almost by definition, is following your passions. It is doing what you like to do. In the past, when children and teens were much freer than they are today, many would spend endless hours acquiring skills and knowledge in activities motivated purely by their own interest, for no prizes or other rewards outside of the activity itself. The great geniuses of the world, who truly did follow their passions, have almost always said that their “work” is play. Einstein, for example, referred to his work in mathematics and theoretical physics as “combinatorial play.” He developed this passionate interest before he was taught any math in school, and he wrote, in his autobiography, that school almost killed it. He continued to nurture his passion only by taking school much less seriously than did his classmates.

Passions also arise from a sense of purpose in the world, a feeling of mission to make the world somehow better. The people I know who seem to be most productive and happy in their careers are those for whom the career is both play and a means of leaving a positive mark on the world. These are lucky people, and we are all lucky that they are here. How can we create an educational environment that fosters rather than inhibits this kind of development?

So now, with this post, I'm asking for your story about the development of a passionate interest. It might be a story about your own interest, or that of your child, or that of anyone else you know well.

• When (at what age) did that interest first appear? What seemed to cause it to appear?

• What kinds of things did the person with that interest do to develop skills and knowledge related to it?

• Has the interest evolved or changed over time and if so, how?

• Did the interest contribute in some way to a career choice (for people who have a career), or does it seem possible that it will eventually contribute to a career (for children and teens or others not yet on a career path)?

Please present your story in the “comments” section below; do not send it to me by private email. By putting it in comments, you are making it available for everyone to read. If you would prefer not to use your name, feel free to post anonymously. Your observations could well help create a world in which more people have the opportunity to discover and pursue what they truly like to do; a world that is much happier than the one we have today.

Please send me your story before Christmas. If I receive enough stories for an interesting analysis, I'll present that in a new post soon after Christmas.

I would say I had a passion for sound. In the third grade I wrote scripts to fairy tales. Somehow, not yet specific enough, I could see that words create stories that form ideas and the formation of the sounds as the words build structures within, that are followed and that can define a person as their actions, their choices of what they like and dislike.
My father also tried to get me to be on a radio who when I was around the same age. I rejected it because the woman had a dog that smelled horrible to me. I did not want to go back and smell that dog again. Later in my life, I walked into a house and smelled the same smell and told the owner's of the dog that the dog had cancer and was sick. They took the dog to the vet and the cancer was confirmed. They had acclimated to the smell over time in the house they did not notice the changes; this is much like not seeing the forest through the trees. What we come to believe as the orders of the sounds we speak, as the values we embrace that consume our attention, are much like that cancer smell, we do not see through the trees of our beliefs the forest anymore. We create the inner resonant structures through the sounds we generate as the words we speak.
I became a musician, a classical violinist. Even though I first entered college, a major university to study English. I remember a professor suggesting I study the dictionary. That was overwhelming because my own resonant constructs as beliefs, was too great, I could not slow down enough to integrate the words. My forest was filled with too many trees and I could no longer see the individual trees. My processing ability was not in synch with my own resonant morality system and the living reality around me, absorbed from my parental environment.
In this chaos, I studied music, a joy and also a second choice. I also continued to read a lot. To me, music appeared to have more purity, less chaos.
Eventually, in my thirties, I could no longer read novels, because they appeared to always be of an " angle of response." Meaning, always of a story where one chose a lesser evil instead of being in tune with what was best. Every book I picked up was of a tune, a balance, that was not really in tune. Every book seemed to be a cry of that lesser evil, and angle of repose that was of not seeing the forest through the trees. It was a kind of lament of a stuck-ness.
Because of situations in my life, right at the point where I was placed in the concertmistress's chair of a chamber orchestra in Europe, my life took a turn that led me to study the education of children. I finished a master's degree in Reading K-12.
My children were in elementary school at the time, and I had taken a great interest in how they were being formed. I even taught them music. I had learned in teaching violin, that when the structure was well formed, the children could open and be of greater self direction.
Then I stood in front if a class of 4th graders, and this all began to come together.
I realized that the children in front of me did not know their words, they did not know their instruments as their bodies, they could not process the information, and they were all like those fairy tales, especially that of Humpty Dumpty. They were the same as me, all scattered in confusion, at varying degrees. They were lost in the game of choosing the lesser evil because they no longer could see the forest AND the trees. They did not have a correct structural resonance, their blueprint was askew. And that they had absorbed this from the parents. The parents who were just like me. The parents who are a product of the product of public schools. The parents who keep asking that which created the product to fix the product, which is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome. The within was not equal to the without, the above not equal to the below.
Looking out across that room, and at my own children, and at what I had learned in the discipline of music, and what had happened within reading a lot, I suddenly realized that the sounds we make, as how we use our words, was a great tool to structurally order our movements. That our words had to be in synch with the instrument that is us, as living bodies able to absorb mis-information as that lesser evil, or work with the living reality in order to make choices that allowed the real and natural ability inherent in what we are as humans beings to live its real potential, its real expression as life.
My passion, from childhood, has been to discover a correct use of sound, that somehow, how we are using sound is out of synch with the reality around us. To the extent we cannot even name a natural sense of smell telling us something in our world is out of balance.
I realized that placing children in an isolated environment is the perfect means of separation from a natural ability to see this reality directly and to use the instrument of our sensibility in ways that allow us to realize this forest called life. Our words , our sounds, are not in synch with here.
Our children are of a structural sound resonance, as a mis-use of the imagination, that is caught in a chaos composed of a limited story, and unable to express what they can naturally sense, as a dog that somehow smells off. Yet, I could tell the story of a story with ease, and could not formulate the words to describe something that was in the living reality around me as that dog somehow " not right." I did not have the proper vocabulary, the proper use of sound, to direct myself effectively, and therefor lost an opportunity that might have opened up things in my life. I was just like those 4th graders moving in chaos. And yet, within my experience, I understood that proper structure opened up a natural and smooth and effective self directed ability to generate with ease.
What if I treated words like notes? What if it is that my words, my sounds, were not grounded and in order? Could I rebuild because I could not address the chaos because of a lack of proper relationships in the use of sounds as words? Could a resonant structure be rebuilt to align the sounds as the words, as the trees and the forest, to self realize what was happening as that choice of an angle of repose as the choice of lesser evil, that is of a chaos, of and as a limited and set body of information learned and absorbed from the same as the parents, and the system, to retain a natural ability to sense reality, and synch words to align to that natural ability?
My passion is to realize that our words are not in synch with reality, and that we must as a species rebuild our within to synchronize to the reality around us, so that we realize the proverbial trees and forest and self as life.
The depth of the chaos is great. Our schools a technology that only add to a separation from a natural ability within proper use of our senses to realize this reality and imbalances within it. The adults are themselves, just as myself, not clearly seeing the forest, and the trees and our relationship clearly within this. We are all like that character in the novel The Tin Drum, screaming our loss of self, our loss of being grounded in that ability to sense that dog that is physically out of synch with being aligned in a state of real health, being aligned with this earth/hearth/heart.
I do have a solution to this problem. It is an age hold practice, it is nothing new. Accelerated learning techniques describe physical learning, that which we have lost, that which we no longer use. When we physically learn the words, as placeholders of information, without pictures, we can rebuild the means of communication, that can also lend proper structure, to the extent processing spells, as words, can have a proper structure, as alignment to this living reality. This is to open up a natural learning ability, which is an absorbent listening/hearing nature, an original presence, to ensure that we do not lose a natural spatial awareness to this reality, to this physical body all around us that is us that we can see and sense, unless we become so resonantly separate we get caught in the came of the lesser evil, which is a form of giving up, and causes a voice of lament for a lost self.
Some say, that everything is sound. We all understand that when the orchestra is not hearing the parts and the whole, thing get out of tune, out of synch. When the orchestra is in synch, the harmony is awesome and an experience of great joy. When we really know something, we are happy, we share, we have greater compassion. When we are uncertain we are insecure and become fearful, this is because we cannot see the forest and the trees and the ground and ourselves. It i because our structural resonance, our blueprint, no longer is in synch with reality. Our words, our vocabulary as what we speak, can be used to rebuild our within, to RESTORE a natural ability to see this reality directly. After all, that is how we learned to crawl and to walk and to talk without any micro management, as learning is natural.

Your story fascinates me, as of recently I've been a little obsessed with words and how they truly shape our world.
Your small bit about smelling the dog triggered something in me. Ever since I was a kid I always made up my own words for smells. Except they are never spoken. They just exist in my head, and I have never shared them with other people.
I always thought it was weird that I had my own language for smell, so even at 37 years old, I don't share. In fact, this is the first time I've shared this.

Thanks for the response, I have to say that speaking up about this, for a long time, was also difficult for me.
Using memory to learn is creating a resonant picture that is never the real thing. And it is as though smell retains a deeper ability to SEE structures in the physical reality. Yet,smells can also trigger memories, or the past pictures about one's life with all the emotional charges of what it is that separates one from a correct use of one's presence. That presence able to read the physical reality, yet that has been focused through distraction into resonant memorized pictures, that cause a separation, and insecurity. In moments, one can see through the " veil" and sense there is something out of synch, which is why it is so difficult to express in words. The words are aligned to the ideological resonant memory construction- a 3-d mind that is not what is real and here that we sense in moments.
This is why, our words must be realigned to the reality around us.
This is all known and has been said in various ways. What does a sound mind mean? What does becoming the living word mean? What does no longer having fear mean? By placing a child in a room to memorize a general scaffold of information an action of separation happens, it is an act of separating a child from a natural presence that when focused learns quickly. Just as the child did BEFORE they reach the third grade can learn quickly to the extent that parents often wonder what happened to the earlier visible potential.
Accelerated learning techniques described physical learning, meaning full employment of the senses interacting directly with this living reality.
I had a professional musician tell me in my twenties that if I focused correctly, I did not need to practice endless hours. It took me years, but I did realize that point. If I practiced with resonant stories running through me, that remained with me when I played the piece I had practiced with that background information. If I practiced with full focus, which feels different, I could learn a piece much faster. Often, I could us a metronome, as that would be a good use of distraction, to narrow my focus and change up the space and time. This is similar to people who can learn through singing, because it is a different processing order, as time and meter, which distracts from automated processing speeds.
This is also why it is being said, more and more, to remember to breathe.
Words are a wonderful tool, they can when properly learned, as really knowing the spells, be practiced as a movement, to be aligned to looking at the physical, without pictures attacked or triggered. Then one knows the words, as a language that is never the real thing, AND look at what is here, instead of what is of a resonant automated, elongated, limited, set body of information.
Also, when a parent has a child, focus only on the parent's face, in the early years, rather than all things, the child brings that forward above all else. The parent is bringing forward their resonant memories, and the child absorbs them- not a bad necessarily, yet at the exclusion of all else, it creates a very limited habituated way of focus.
When I smelled the dog, it was a little part of a natural ability to sense the physical reality, yet i had not words learned in relation to that so I could not speak of it. This shows the degree of separation our words have become. I am not sure that even a Sudbury school can change this, as the child absorbs the parents who are products of the present system.
One must rebuild each word, to be aligned back into a focus on the physical reality, to restore that natural presence that can sense so much dimension and shape, movement and quality of the living reality around us, for which we are the most perfect of designs.
In contrast, we are similar to animals in cages. In the passive school environment, a teacher can create an activity that is of more engagement than that passive state, and the children will appear to be happy, when they are just so glad to be doing SOMETHING, and yet, that is a false positive, because it is not really full engagement of the sentient nature of the self within.
IN other words, we must rebuild through focusing our selves back into a natural sentient ability, which can be done through aligning our words, to the living reality, so that when we walk into a room and sense an animal is no longer at ease, we can sense the form of the disease- or, realize an imbalance before it becomes extreme, and ensure the whole form is in a state of sound presence.
The veil is composed of associative thinking to limited memorized value systems, one's natural state of being, can see the many dimensions of this physical reality.
We all know this on some level, and if we look, we all have a world within, that we can no longer speak of, because it is as though the words do not fit with that sentience. And it is as that, our words are not in synch with reality. We are living in a dualistic mind. the two sides should be in synch. The consequence of a dualistic mind set, are slow processing speeds, and cognitive dissonance. What are the problems rampant in our schools today?

"And it is as that, our words are not in synch with reality. We are living in a dualistic mind. the two sides should be in synch. The consequence of a dualistic mind set, are slow processing speeds, and cognitive dissonance."

This seems to be the "story" of my life. I have the dual mind. There is a hidden me that is a writer, but when I write I don't like myself. I lose touch with what seems like reality, and I've been known to write things that soon shape parts of my world, and it's never good. I'm somewhat of a dark writer, and as of recently, decided that I would quit writing due to the compulsive behavior that sets in. It's worse if I find myself with a muse.
Without this part of me I feel inauthentic, yet I have an overwhelming fear of sharing and being this woman.
I am also a painter, and typically all my unspoken stories and language morph into abstract line and color.
It mostly helps ease the sadness that comes with a dualistic mind, but lately it seems like a way to continually hide my intense creative side.
Your words though, have me thinking of the proper way to sync the two mindsets as one. I've been desperate for this.

My brother appears to be a poster child for success of public schooling in some ways. He became interested in spiders in elementary school, checking out books from the school library that he noticed made him feel unique (others had a repulsion to spiders). In highschool he had a very smart, academically driven group of friends. He worked hard at school to keep up with them and in the belief that it would be his path to a good life. He worked hard in college and is now in grad school at an ivy league school.
However, many of the things that contributed to his development were outside of school. As a little guy he spent a lot of time outside in our big yard by himself, investigating things at his own level. He also spent a lot of time watching TV, including David Attenborough DVDs of series, like Life in the Undergrowth. His first job, at 16, was at a university biology research lab.
So, the only element of this story that I can see his school might have helped was having very academically competitive friends in school and the connection to get that job through one of those friends. I'm wondering how it would have been for him in a Sudbury school or unschooling. He's one of very few who fit the mold that coercive school caters to.
Now as to how he's doing now... Very anxious. I know grad school is one of the most stressful experiences in life for many people. I wonder if it's due to the level of self-direction required? Thankfully he feels less stigma than I did in school about getting counseling!

When I was 3, my father wrote a big fat book about mountain climbing. I remember helping sort big stacks of paper. I remember playing at parks with my older sister next to buildings where my dad would give book presentations, and afterwards him showing me how the slide projector worked.

My mother always checked out over 100 books at the library for us every time we went. I remember carrying several big milk crates full of books too and from the car each time. I loved books! I was never able to remember things, or even recognize things visually, including people, so I connected the world with stories. Stories are how I relate to the rest of the world. My mother never missed taking her large family to church. For me it was difficult to sit still that long. My only redemption was the rest hymns, but I didn't always know the words. The words were in the hymn book if only I knew how to read. I was the second oldest, and so my mother was often too busy taking care of the babies to read to me. So I learned how to read before I was in kindergarten. It was the most significant thing that ever happened to me in my life. Suddenly I could relate to other humans. I could understand the thoughts and feelings of those who lived long before I was alive. I no longer felt alone because I could not communicate with other people well.

I spent years reading books to my younger siblings, all piled on the same bed or under a blanket fort we had made in the living room, or even way up high in the branches of a tree! Ioved books! I always got so excited when I found one, like Stellaluna or I'll love you forever, that I really liked!

I went to college and took a bunch of education classes. My favorite ones were about things like children's literature and story telling. I also took a bunch of music classes. By the time my husband and I had our second college baby, and he graduated the next month, I realized that maybe I needed to major in something before my attempts at a degree got pushed aside permanently. I had become unenchanted by the public school system I was taking classes to teach in, so I created an individualized major in alternative learning, and a minor in music.

My siblings had also started families of their own. Still on occasions when we all got together, you could find all these adults who were now parents themselves, laying on the floor mesmorised by a tale as one of us read a hew (or sometimes old) story. I also began reading to my kids from the very beginning. Sifting through the good and the boring books out there targeted at children, and exclaiming excitedly when I found a good one, such as Eve Bunting!

When our kids were starting to learn how to read, my siblings and I started to write books for them, but then we had more and more kids and babies and life and nothing much happened with them. I did end up signing a contract with a couple of magazines. Then one day my youngest turned 3 and I realized I was probably too old to have any more. I was scared by our financial situation, and sick of asking others for help. I had been a stay at home mom for almost 20 years. The problem was that the most important thing in my life is for my kids to be raised with mutual respect, as equal human beings, not as the second class citizens most kids are treated as. I knew this would not happen if I left anyone else in charge of tending them, while I went to work. Having been out of the workforce for so long, it was also way more difficult to reenter it than I had thought.

Then my church offered a support group/class on starting your own business. I went to support my oldest son in going. He ended up not choosing to continue, but I did. I discovered I not only had a talent for editing other people's kid's books, but that my musical background made me able to recognize the small differences that make or break the ever elusive rhyming children's book. One time I joined a group of well published authors, and when they found out I was only magazine published, they tried to give me advice on the years of classes and stuff I needed to do before I could really contribute to the group. Then someone was nice and decided it wouldn't hurt to show me their story. They loved what I was able to do to it! They ended up using the draft I made for them as their final submission, and coming to me for help in the future. Considering they had 10 books already published, and that I was a nobody in the world of children's literature, this made me feel so good! As I made my way in the world of writing literature, I realized my talent was actually in spotting talent! I was, in short, a publisher. That is what publishers do, they are able to recognize the authors who are really talented, even when those authors don't realize it themselves. I decided to start my own publishing company. I am now in the process of preparing two books from amazing authors and with amazing illustrators, for publishing. I sometimes meet people who are skeptical, because of my lack of background in the publishing world, but when they see what I can do to help take a good story and make it great, their skepticism soon leaves. The truth is, I have had the best boot camp possible for publishing children's books. While others may have been taking classes and talking to other grown ups in the children's books publishing business, I have spent almost 40 years participating at the most intimate level in what they have been studying, reading, and talking about. I know kids and how they react to which elements a book has. My whole life I thought that after I was done raising kids, then I would learn something useful and contribute something else to the world. I did not realize that by having kids, and reading to them, I was preparing myself in the best way for what I really wanted to give to the world.

My dad had a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I was fascinated with it. He let me play with it, starting at about age 5, and I'd create voices and stories and record them. I loved it. Maybe it sounds like I'm full of myself, but I loved hearing my voice on the tape. It sounded different. I was a bit shy and withdrawn, but on the tapes, I could be bold and funny and whoever I wanted to be. It was exciting and exhilarating! I would happily play for hours.

As I got older, I used to recreate tv shows with all the characters, for example, The Gong Show (one of my all time favorites). Saturday Night Live too - I'd recreate the skits. I was a "Teacher's Pet" type student who followed the rules and got straight A's in school, but I often didn't like it very much. I liked my friends and I liked some of the things I learned (especially writing, math, and science), but I felt like I had to do so many things that were meaningless to me. I did them anyway, as I was allured by the praise, the gold stars, and the A's...by being labeled as "smart." School didn't really do anything to help my passion. Except, as early as 3rd grade, I remember all my teachers making me read aloud often. I didn't mind, and I even liked it. I had one teacher in junior high who used to say, "Laura- you read. I like the way you read." That was the first time that I felt that someone recognized what I loved doing...not the reading so much as my voice acting- telling a story with my voice.

Other than that, I felt lost after graduating from high school and college. I got a degree in speech therapy, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. I liked helping children, but at the same time, I wasn't fulfilling that desire in my heart. I wasn't being who I felt I really was. And I was working in schools, which felt like prison all over again! HA! So, I took a couple voice acting classes with a highly experienced voice talent, researched how to get into the business, and got myself an agent.

Fast forward many years, and now I'm doing what I love, and getting paid for it - which is amazing to me - voice-overs. I have worked in radio and many different media. I've been professionally doing voice-overs since 2006. I use the latest technology these days, of course, but I kinda wish I still had that old reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was magic. I still feel that magic every time I record.

I have loved babies and children since I was a child myself. I was not the little girl who was always playing with baby dolls, although I did have one, but I was the little girl who was always hovering around other women with babies and “mothering” the younger children in the group. I decided early on that I wanted to work with children in some way, but I had no idea how. The only careers I knew of that worked with children were elementary/preschool teachers and pediatrician or obstetrician and I didn’t even think to ask someone what else there was that I could do. I finished as salutatorian of my class without ever trying for it which made me think should become a doctor so that I was intellectually stimulated. I remember making a plan with my friend Rachel when we were around 14. She was going to be a cosmetologist and I was going to be an obstetrician, delivering babies, and we were both going to own chihuahuas and live near each other in Colorado where we could go skiing all the time. Well Rachel became a cosmetologist but that was the only thing that came true in that scenario.
Unfortunately, something else that I developed as a child was a completely debilitating medical phobia, I would pass out regularly in biology and health classes. When I got to college, I let my phobia prevent me from pursuing a degree in a biological field and becoming pre-med. Instead I got a chemistry degree. My professors encouraged me to continue pursuing higher education because I was such a good student. I went to an Ivy League graduate school and got a little closer to biology, with my dissertation being completed under the dual direction of a biophysical chemist and a molecular biologist. I had many internal struggles while attaining my doctorate. I kept questioning what I wanted out of this path that I was on. I had no end game. I didn’t want to be a professor and I really didn’t want to work in industry. I had no passion for what I was doing although I could find it interesting. I remember at one point I made my husband promise me that he wouldn’t let me do a post-doc because I saw it as blindly following a path that others saw merit in, but I did not. It denied my real desires which at that point were so clouded I didn’t even know them.
I did end up doing a post-doc and I will give my husband credit he did try to stop me. We came to an understanding about something, I made the conscious decision to see the post-doc as just a job and a means to a desirable end. I chose to work in biochemistry, but the real appeal of the post-doc was the location, Salt Lake City, UT. I worked diligently in my post-doc, but there was also a palpable respect for a healthy work/life balance that all of my lab mates shared. Everyone had interests outside the lab, skiing, hiking, rock climbing, running etc. After living in Utah for half a year, I got pregnant, a haphazardly semi-planned event. We said if it happens fine and then it did, very quickly. I was suddenly thrown into a whole new world of learning, about pregnancy and birth, babies and parenting. I was enthralled. When my son was born I had 12 wonderful weeks home with him and then returned to work. His birth put a lot of things into perspective for me. The lab could not compete with my son. I remember sitting at work bored, thinking, “this is what I am leaving my baby for? It’s not worth it. I don’t even like this.” Meanwhile I was still reading every book I could find on childbirth and parenting. My son was 3 months old and I knew I wanted to unschool him, try baby led-weaning and in general follow his lead for most things. I finished my 2-year contract with my post-doctoral lab and I left work to be home with my son. I felt like if I was going to preach giving children the best start in life, then I better practice those things that I believed would do it and that started with being home. I also found and took birth and postpartum doula training courses because I wanted to find a way to be involved in the childbirth community. I felt like I had found my “tribe”. The more I learned about childbirth the more I wanted to learn and be a part of it. I knew that I had found my passion, but I wasn’t sure of the exact profession. Now my son is 5 years old and I have a 2-year old daughter, I have gone through multiple rounds of self-directed desensitization therapy sessions for my medical phobia and I am about to complete the last steps to becoming an IBCLC. I will get to make a difference in the lives of mothers and babies and in a that way changes the world for the better. I also know I never want to stop learning and that I can see a future for myself where I become a pediatric nurse practitioner or midwife. What I love about my story is that it is only in retrospect that I can see how I have come full circle, almost. I can’t regret my circuitous path because I now believe that the midwifery model of care suits my worldview more than the medical model obstetrics offers. I am grateful that I did not come to see birth as a medical crisis needing interventions which could have been the case if I had become an obstetrician as I had originally planned. I am so grateful for the ride I have taken to get here.

I am also an IBCLC. A profession I never planned on having. I have always been facinated by health care, a problem solver, and research nerd. A peds nurse for several years and upon having my first child struggling with breastfeeding difficulties, researching and educating myself. I found my passion! Sometimes our paths are to prepare us for the next step.

Our youngest daughter, at age 8 asked us if she could play the violin. I signed her up for a six week class and she took to it instantly. She has been playing for three years now, continues to excel at her playing-she is a member of two orchestras, plays summer quartets and in 2019 will be traveling to NYC to perform at the Carnegie Hall Music Festival. I truly believe if she were enrolled in traditional school, she would not been pursuing her music with the same kind of intention as she does. She's excited about her music, has really wonderful musical mentors and expresses her desire to be a professional musician someday. I think one of the biggest factors in all of this is time- and time to nurture her gifts. She has time to pursue her interests and develop her skill and ability. She is introverted, was not quick to speak as a child- still today, she tends to not be super vocal, but when she plays the violin, she is speaking to the world.

I’ve been working passionately in education for 56 years. I attended an ordinary public high school, drifted though it without much effort, totally unaware that any other path existed, graduated, and went directly to UCLA. I declared a pre-med major (yes, UCLA offered such a major). I was completely shocked by my first set of finals: Excuse me, do you really expect me to sit for three-hour exams and demonstrate that I’ve mastered, or at least memorized, the content of an entire semester? I realized then that high school had stolen from me four years of my life. I changed my major to physical-sciences and mathematics, a major designed to prepare teachers to teach these subjects and very similar to pre-med. I had a deep desire to change things. After I earned my degree, I began teaching in a junior high school in Los Angeles. Subsequently I taught in five other schools, another junior high school, two K-8 schools, and two high schools. One of the K-8 schools was a private free school in Canada, where I worked for one year. I spent 31 years in public schools. I finally became disillusioned, disgusted actually, by the inappropriate, limiting, and sometimes damaging burdens placed on students in public schools. I’m a slow learner in this regard, but I gained a thorough knowledge of the system that put me in a position to subvert it. I left the system, and for the past 24 years I’ve been working through my own private high school, nothing more than a home office, but it’s a legal school under California law. I support students who want and need something other than a traditional high school education. I've graduated more the 1,500 young people, and, without a full, or sometimes without even a partial, traditional high school education – many of them have been homeschooled – they've been very successful in a wide range of endeavors, becoming doctors, professors, dancers, musicians, professional athletes, entrepreneurs, tradespeople, and full participants in many other vocational pursuits.

Ah Peter, your well never runs dry. Our democratic-compulsory school systems/CAFO'S (confined animal feeding operations) are the most efficient passion killers and we wonder how/why it's graduates elected "It" as pres.. However, we must give them credit for mass producing the most passionate fans, except I believe there is no substitute.for "participation" and of the minority that do participate in school athletics and band, over 95% will never play a game or blow a note after graduation, eagerly joining their consuming classmates on the couch or in the huge stadiums, eagerly feathering the nests of the 1%.

Luckily I grew up overlooking an ideal kids lake, full of adventure--just 200' to swim, canoe, skate and a 500' hill beyond, which Jim and I went over when 15 and followed East Burns Creek to a small dairy farm, where farmer Sonny said we could trap fox.
I hated school. Trapped 54 fox, in 2.5 months, for the $4 bounty when 16 and 71 when 17, which got me out of school at 3 instead of 4. Hockey got me out in winter and Sonny signed my work slip Spring Quarter. I didn't ask Sonny for any pay, but he paid me in more than money, for that small farm's, more self sufficient life style is why I bought this 175 acre adjoining farm, with a wife and 2 kids, when 24, while attending Winona State Teachers College on the G.I. Bill----why school??? Because finishing h.s., even in 1949 at 17, we were already programmed like sheep, to follow the leader to college. And if you think school kills passions, try the military, if you physically and mentally survive.

Assuming the purpose of schooling was as stated, I followed as a good sheep, as those who believed in the reason they were sent to Vietnam, Iraq, etc.. From 1959 to 1970, I worked in many experimental programs, including 3 university systems, searching for something that made sense, about locking young people up. Unschooled our last 4 kids while milking 40 cows and driving semi. At 86, am trying to donate the farm. Because there is a Conservation Easement on these 175 acres, 3 mi. from the center of Winona, but protected from the City by 500' hills, it can't be developed, so some rich sob will buy it for a few million and make it his locked gate, show off estate. Between Sue and I have 16 children and even if one was interested, they would eventually arrive at the same situation. Ideally a self directed group would buy an adjoining 20 acres. The City of Winona and Winona County don't want the farm. Even if they did, a park or nature center is the best they could think of. One stipulation is that they promote and expand the 3 acre natural burial cemetery here. Most bureaucrats aren't looking for challenges and school people are locked into a closed system. Those 20 acres with a trout stream, woods and riparian areas, adjoining these 175 acres where hopefully adults of all ages will be working at worth while activities, that give them such inner satisfaction, that they would do them for no pay, which is what I've been doing. It's snowing now, but yesterday I was splitting fire wood, since like Sonny, that is all I've ever heated with and I spread 2 loads of compost with my 425 bu. spreader.

Looking across the valley, I can see a long gone farmer neighbors farm, which is mostly developed, except the original house and barn with 24 stanchions, each with the last Guernsey occupants name. Terry visited this farm as a 4th grader, 6 or 7 times. His tchr. was a young nun and former farm girl Because of those visits, he decided he wanted to live in the country. After 20 yrs. in the Twin Cities, he and his family bought that farmstead. They are surrounded by projects, that most crammed in city dwellers can't begin to dream of DOING .

When I was age seven, I started writing in a baby journal about the major events in my new sister's life. Mom had received two baby journals as gifts so she gave one to me. To be entrusted with the task of creating a record of this new human's important moments was invigorating. Although I was a struggling reader in school, writing in the baby journal was so important to me and it filled me with joy. Somehow, that passion for writing has stayed with me throughout my life. It is not my career. I am an educator of elementary students. Writing is what I do for pleasure.

My husband's passion has always been building things, creating, inventing, improving and perfecting. When he was young one year for Christmas his parents gave him and his brother a seized engine to rebuild. They spent hours taking it apart, cleaning it up, and putting it back together. A few years later, he designed and built a go-cart, all on his own -- not just a crate with wheels but a working little car. That experience, especially since he was NOT supported in that endeavor (worked at a car dealership and used his earnings to buy the parts, etc, and without others' input) gave him confidence that he has relied on throughout his life that he can do difficult things. This was probably when he was around 12-14. Later, about 16, he bought an old junky jeep and fixed it up, inside and out, repainted it, etc. , enjoyed driving it and eventually resold it.
He studied manufacturing engineering in college, thinking that woukd be the most likely place to be able to create mechanical things, which he enjoyed, especially the use of the schools's labs and tools, where he invented and crafted several items for fun, such as a set of building blocks (and the mold to produce them), a model rocket launch pad for my little brother, and several other things. He got a job during school working as a draftsman, which gave him thousands of hours of experience in CAD. He graduated to work as a manufacturing engineer but eventually found just working on or improving someone else's specifications or ideas was unsatisfying. His career has shifted now from creating and improving objects to doing the same with processes -- taking the same creative principles to a much higher level.
(He still loves to invent things, however. We were early adopters of one of the first 3D printers, over 10 years ago, which he still uses all the time.)

My passion has always been reading. I read long before entering kindergarten. I was a permanent fixture in the school and local libraries. I don't remember the librarians' names, but I give them credit for creating a welcoming environment for me and helping me find new books. My parentson also fostered my love of reading by taking me to the library and giving me books at Christmas and birthdays. One other thing -- they NEVER censored my reading, although they were very careful about encouraging me to find the best books and expose me to good literature. For several summers I remember my mother making our own summer reading program, with incentives, etc, because the local one was not at all challenging. She had us (my sibs and me) read from all sorts of genres to stretch us. The summer I was probably 10 I remember reading a romance (this was brilliant -- I absolutely HATED it, thought it was drivel --I was 10, after all-- and that antipathy has lasted all my life), a history, a sci-fi, a fantasy, a biography, a book of poetry, an autobiography, a religious work, and probably others. I remember I chose The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which was a little dense for me at the time, but probably less so than the religious work which was CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.
My tastes have changed from a lot of fantasy as an early teen, to classic literature which I still love, to now mostly non-fiction, science especially in college (which I also majored in) and now to mainly history, but really my tastes are far-ranging, from business to psychology to crafts to biography to music and art and etc.
What has this led to? Well, everywhere I suppose. I have a love of adventure and learning about all sorts of things. I stay home with my children and we explore together, and as I have continued to read and learn, I use my extensive reading background to find good books for them to read and to read aloud to them. I can make connections that help spark interest for my choldren.
My reading explorations have led me, first to homeschooling (I went to public school), and then from a more structured to a much more child-led type of homeschooling. We read and review books for a book review company. It has led each of us on to awareness of other passions or hobbies or interests-- my oldest, recently graduated high school, found psychology fascinating and plans to become a psychiatrist. I use all I learn in my volunteer work as well. Reading 'Free to Learn', which I got from the review company, brought me to this blog
And etc and etc. It is a passion which affects everything in my life (including my sleep!).

Hello, I’m currently in High School, which sucks because I have a passion for producing. When I younger I had a passion for engineering. I have a whole of a Lego sets out of the box in these brick shaped containers. I went to robotics class in intermediate and actually liked it. But because it’s more laid back and we talked and followed step on the computers they assigned us (Not the best way to learn engineering) Then this school called CTHS appeared. It’s pretty new and only the kids who got suckered in like me went since you have to write an essay. When I went for the first time I was excited, but then I started to not like it. Then I searched up “Why school sucks” and then I found you, John Holt, and other unschooling supporters on NaturalChild. Once I went to my schools engineering class things started to go downhill. It sucked, My engineering teacher just stands in the room talking about stuff like tools, torque, torsion and other things and last week we watched a long video about bridges. That killed off engineering for me. Then math is a lot worse. I already hated math but then I have to do everything on the computer using this thing called Summit Learning. My parents have a passion to tell everything they want. They tell me to get good grades, because they said if I don't I will be flipping burgers for life. Go to tutoring (I tried to skip but decided to go anyways. What I mean by skip is wait outside the school) and doing Special Olympics. Special Olympics is basically adult controlled competitive sports. Just like every other little league except with teens along with young kids. My parents forced me to do this since I was in 2nd grade. I remember when I was in elementary is when I first thought about hating school. I used to draw comics at that time, and loved doing it. I drew many things like “Mcdonalds Comedy” and “The Noob”. I also drew many small comics and flip o ramas.
I then thought about Game Design. I went to this camp called IDtech. Which is following your passion and learning things very fast. There’s some pressure and they don’t like phones out at all but it was fun. We had interesting conversations and built our games. I remember my first year I went to use an Audrino, but then I went to look at the kids on Unity. Which I did the next year. I do have to admit though that I still forgot a whole bunch of things like programming and other things. But I still remember chatting with kids and buying stuff. But it’s still controlled and I can do technically everything on my own.
Then my love of electronic music appears. I was 12 years old when I found this game Sinewave. It had artist I didn’t even know at the time. I then listened to one of the songs and then I listened to more from a record label that most normies (Mass-market content) don’t know about is Never Say Die Records (which you don’t know about though). Then I discovered Disciple, Firepower, and other labels specially made one or more genres of electronic music. I thought “Hey, I want to make that.” So a couple of months ago I found a DAW on Android. It’s called Caustic 3. I use it everyday while on the bus. I basically make these short tracks. I know I suck at making professional sounding music but I know that I have passion for it.

I can’t really do my passion a lot since my parents want me to focus on school (They don’t really know that I want to produce music) and whatever else they got planned. I can’t drop out of Special Olympics. And our school days are 8 hours long with a 25 minute lunch break. We don’t get time to ourselves that much during the school day. Then my sister (one grade above) gets some homework on certain days. She also makes excuses to not go to church on Wensday since she studies for a test. My parents are also concerned about what I do online, so that really limits my browsing on the internet. I mostly go outside and talk to myself. Schools were not designed to help kids get to their passion despite what the govnerment, parents, teachers, and testing companies say. These are not true and all are brainwashed by silly testing companies to make more money off of us kids. I feel bad that John Holt didn’t get the unschooling movement going that far. But hopefully we can, and will, get rid of the compulsory schooling system.

I understand and sympathize with your dilemma. I have heard similar complaints from many hundreds of people who would rather not be in high school. I hope that at some point you can find an agreeable path to follow.

I know high school changed very little when your growing up. But my experience is very similar which is exactly the same as everyone else's experience. I really do want to drop out but my parents believe that school and college are the way to get a good job when their not. I've heard college is no good way to get a job. Thanks to peer pressure it feels like another 4 years of school. I'm not wanting to go to college at all.

Your parents are right (but don’t stop reading!) in that many good jobs do require a college degree, sometimes more than one. It is also true that, statistically, college graduates earn more money than people with just a high school diploma. But this correlation does not prove cause and effect, statistics do not necessarily apply to any given individual, and many people do quite well without a college degree, sometimes making good money, sometimes feeling that money is less important than other aspects of life. Would it be useful to discuss your passion for music production with your parents? Have you looked at the possibilities of learning about it in college? Have you looked into how people who work in this field have gained their skills? One place to start looking is in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook. Go to Google, enter "Occupational Outlook Handbook," choose the A-Z index, click on "P," and look under "Producers and Directors." Another thing you can do is try to contact people who are working in the field. My experience is that many people who seem unreachable actually can be reached; sometimes they can be easily contacted, sometimes a determined search is required.

Anonymous,
It is fascinating to hear the perspective of someone who feels themselves to be trapped in a public high school.
Since you (apparently) have to be there, its interesting to think about how you might make the best of a bad situation. I remember hearing of one young woman in her early 20's who tried posing as a teenager to be able to attend a high school and then write about the kind of social culture there. But I do not think that person looked at the ways students coped with somehow having to learn subjects that didn't interest them, or how those who are were not academically inclined but who may very well have had other talents that they would have liked to have more time to develop coped with instead being condemned to stay there and fail.
Someone like you might be in a position to learn from your fellow students about this, and then to write about what you've learned. Maybe a graphic novel? Animated Video? A Musical?
By the way, there is a book that has been directed exactly at students like you (and not to the parents) called "The Teenage Liberation Handbook", by Grace Llewellyn, although the particular examples in that book may or may not be helpful to you.The author is a former high school English teacher who "went rogue" after reading John Holt's "Instead of Education".

I am a person diagnosed with ADD in later life (my middle 50's) and my job history is a bit of a random walk, but through it all my main passion has always been gardening.

I started off as a very young child simply loving to dig in the dirt and make little structures with twigs and rocks, damming up flowing water and making houses for little imaginary creatures. I planted bulbs in my father's garden and loved taking apart the flowers and leaves and twigs, finding layers and veins and flower structures with pollen and seeds. My roommate in college grew up with a garden and we planted tomato seeds together which I took to my grandfather's house and planted (too many plants too close together, as all beginner gardeners do). I graduated in biology and worked in labs, but I kept my grandfather's garden growing and expanding for about 10 years. Then I went to graduate school and studied nutritional biochemistry. I continued to work in labs and to garden at home, mostly vegetables. I also loved to pick wild berries and make jam and pies and to freeze the berries for winter. When my kids were small I became a science teacher. As a teacher I always used a garden and plants in my teaching, also working in an afterschool program where we did gardening and cooking. From the classroom I moved on to curriculum development and teacher training in obesity prevention through nutrition education and physical activity. From there I went on to become the Executive Director for a small nonprofit dedicated to the health of the local community through promotion of healthy lifestyles. One of our programs was school gardens as you might have guessed, and working with school food service.

I've now reached an age of traditional retirement, although of course, never having had a "regular job" for any length of time, I'm not able to afford to retire. and am working part-time at the best job I've ever had - I'm school garden coordinator for the district in which I live, which has only 5 schools (3 elementary, 1 middle and 1 high school). Through the years I struggled off and on with depression and never made a lot of money, but now that I'm diagnosed and medicated a bit, things get better over time. And my passion for gardening and my random walk of a "career" has led me to a wonderful place. I hope to keep doing this for years to come.

I am passionate about natural history and nature conservation.
As a young child, I liked animals- the kinds people keep as pets. As I got older (8/9 years old) this grew into an interest in animal welfare- I wanted to be an 'animal care assistant', which I guess is an assistant vet. And finally as a natural progression, I got into wildlife and wildlife conservation- my interest probably appeared around age 10. At 11 I permanently gave up eating fish, so upset by the overfishing of the seas was I.
I pursued my interest through reading- I was a member of a couple of animal welfare and then wildlife charities which send out magazines to junior members- and watching David Attenborough documentaries, besides spending an awful lot of my spare time outside. I started doing voluntary work with an amphibian conservation group starting in my early teens. I don't feel school played much part in furthering my interest; there isn't much time for environmental education in the curriculum, hence an awful lot of people are disconnected from nature these days, and so are not taking care of it. I can't remember being taught anything really about nature at school, or at least nothing that was news to me!
As a teenager I decided I wanted to work in wildlife conservation, so the passion was there, though my species identification and practical skills weren't great until after my degree (in biology)- it really did take hands on experience to gain that knowledge. My degree was interesting and I'm glad I did it, though largely theoretical rather than equipping me with the practical skills needed to actually get a job working in the conservation industry- more voluntary work was necessary afterwards. The degree was also stressful- I was academic, went to Oxford Uni, so the expectations felt very high. I wish I could go back and do it again really, with the perspective gained since! I think I'd make a much better job these days, because back then I saw it as something of a chore, took it all too seriously, rather than enjoying learning for learning's sake.
I did go on to work for a wildlife charity as a warden on a reserve, and as an ecologist. Now I have found my values have shifted a little; I have a baby son and don't wish to return to work. My own land is my personal conservation project, and I build upon my natural history knowledge each year just because I love to learn. Investing time and energy into my son seems as important as anything, and I hope that he will turn out to know far more than me- he's going to have birdsong pointed out to him from a young age for instance; something which I didn't learn to recognise until into my 20s.

Hi Holly, your story really resonated with me - I home educate my son (I went through the school system in England and studied at Oxford University too). He is only 7 and in awe of nature (plants, animals - tiny and huge). We have a little bit of land that we are trying to grow trees and encourage insects. With your passion and experience, do you have any advice as to how I support him to keep learning about all this? He wants to be a guitarist or a nature-guide! Orion magazine had a brilliant article a couple of years ago about how biology and related subjects are now almost entirely classroom and lab based as well as micro-tech and genetics based, all the field studies have disappeared (in the US at least). We do a lot of nature-study. Hope I am on the right track!

I became interested in Spanish at first reluctantly -- I wanted to take German, the language of my heritage. But then I heard an older teen at my church talk about how she used Spanish to serve children in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and I was hooked: I'd always wanted to travel and help people, so this language had a real purpose for me.

I started high school Spanish, and loved it, because it was very sensory and tactile. I'd always loved words, and been a spelling bee champ, so the linguistic aspect resonated with me on a deep internal level. I also had an English elective at the high school -- Linguistics -- simultaneously with Spanish II, so while my classmates were stumped over direct and indirect objects, it was a breeze to me due to the sentence diagramming in the English course.

I decided in high school that my dream job would be to become a high school Spanish teacher, but thought it could never happen because I could never be as fluent as my teacher. However, through college my passion for the language persisted, even though it was not my major. After college, I went abroad with a volunteer organization to South America, and then returned to the U.S. to begin my career as an elementary school. I quickly found, however, that what I really wanted to be teaching was Spanish. I went overseas again, gained more fluency, and came back to the U.S. and began teaching Spanish at the high school level. What I had thought was an impossible dream became possible!

I should add -- I never earned a college degree in Spanish. I had three years of high school Spanish, a meager 8 credits in college, and the rest of my learning was driven by study abroad, tutoring others in the language, and my own passionate desire to immerse myself in the language (listening and reading, speaking and writing, in relationship with others). I gained my Spanish teaching certification through the "back door" of a TESOL endorsement + the Praxis exam Spanish. On that exam, as well as on the ACTFL proficiency tests, I scored higher than most Spanish majors! My experience lends support to the conviction that self-directed education is POWERFUL and effective!

My best friend isn't the best looking guy in the world. He isn't the richest, or smartest or even the nicest. But for as long as I've known him, he's been the person who everyone wants to be around. His energy is magnetic. His creative spirit invites others to explore the depth of their own imagination.
In high school he excelled in the arts, especially drama. He could take on any role and bring out the emotions in a character extraordinarily well. School was something he endured so that he could be a part of theater productions. Throughout his life, there have been set backs and disappointments but his passion for performing seems to be coded in the wiring of his brain. The fulfillment that he experiences when he observes others receiving his gift.....his talent....which is his identity... is like no other feeling in the world.

I am up to my eyeballs in this very topic---I'm writing a book about my journey from imposed learning to letting the kids do more leading (though I'm still quite bossy). It's easy to let kids run with it when they have clear-cut, consistent passions. What's much harder is figuring out how to deal with the kids who don't. I have lots of stories of both and would be happy to talk to you in greater detail, if you wish.

I am up to my eyeballs in this very topic---I'm writing a book about my journey from imposed learning to letting the kids do more leading (though I'm still quite bossy). It's easy to let kids run with it when they have clear-cut, consistent passions. What's much harder is figuring out how to deal with the kids who don't. I have lots of stories of both and would be happy to talk to you in greater detail, if you wish.

Jennifer

I've let my kids learn almost entirely on their own. I have two almost adult kids who are on the autism spectrum. It hasn't been easy to let them fully lead, but they are both brilliant musicians. They've recently expanded their music genres and are frequently listening to music in foreign languages. Russian, Finnish, Spanish and German. Through music, they are learning several languages all on their own. It's mind blowing to truly experience unschooling in action, as I was brought up in public education, and I had to unlearn so much to be able to truly let go for my children to find their own true pathways. I will admit, it still frightens me at times!
There were moments where my kids seemed to be interested in nothing. One of them would frequently sit very still and just be day dreaming or wanting to do nothing but play video games. His brother would even get angry at him for doing "nothing". He would get angry at me.
"Are you just going to let him do nothing mom? He's going to be a failure!"
As it turns out, when he seems to be doing nothing, he is processing and thinking deeply. He is able to practice drumming sequences in his mind after listening to a song, and then he will just get up and play a song, first run through, and do it near perfectly.
He did this as a baby and toddler as well. His twin always did everything first, and then he'd be a few months behind him, but when he did things, he just did it like it was nothing. He even did this with crawling!
So, I often wonder about those who seem quiet or aimless. Perhaps they are taking everything in before showing the world what they've got.
Then, there are those rebel children.. If you suggest anything to them, it's off the table. It's incredibly difficult to see a rebel unfold without much interference!
I'd be very interested in reading your book Jennifer!

The two activities that I would consider consistent "passions" throughout childhood, I realise were both things I felt totally free in childhood to play with, separate from school. (until school interfered, that is). Writing (fiction) and playing piano. In my teens, my desire to be a writer dwindled and ultimately disappeared (until recently), due to GCSE English - I still wrote pages & pages of personal diary, though, and in one entry, written in Year 10, I recently found a very sad quote, something like "I am going to set aside my own writing until after GCSEs because I'm gonna need to focus all my literary energy on GCSE English." I never returned to it, other than seeds of story ideas knocking about in my head, until this year (age 41) and have so far amazingly written 2 novels (just for fun, just for me, one for NaNoWriMo) and already thinking about my 3rd. Thanks to extensive deschooling and letting go of all expectations, lack of confidence etc. It's AWESOME to just play and feel free with it now, the way I did as a child!

Whereas with the piano, I refused pointblank from younger than I remember to have piano lessons (my mum started me off), I learnt entirely by myself, until age 16 doing A Level music I agreed to lessons in order for the piano to be my main instrument towards the performance part of the A level. (At GCSE I did drums & bass guitar instead). I don't regret that either – I was ready then for more input, it was my choice, and I learnt a lot, plus had a wonderful patient teacher who let me be me :) Up until then, the piano was MINE, I did not want the intrusion of a teacher or the pressure of performance.

I also had violin lessons as a child and hated it, HAVING to practice, having to learn certain pieces, (and do graded exams) - I gave it up age 12 once the lessons stopped being free and my parents finally gave me a REAL choice with that. The difference between the two experiences (with piano and violin) is stark and an excellent example of the effect of top-down teaching on an activity, it's been really helpful for my deschooling journey to have experienced that.

So anyway I thought I'd answer the questions one by one for both writing and the violin.

• When (at what age) did that interest first appear? What seemed to cause it to appear?

Writing - we read a lot as kids (we didn't have a TV), and we also got given a typewriter (and later we had a BBC Micro computer) and so I was often typing stories (or Chapter 1s ;) ) I don't really remember when I first decided I wanted to be an author, but it may be when we came across the Garden Gang books, written by a 9 year old (Jayne Fisher), and I was 8 - I was determined to beat her to it and sent a couple of short stories off to a publisher's. I still have the lovely rejection letters in a box somewhere, I was so chuffed to get a letter from an actual publisher :)
Ever since, I've always had this daydream of a book with my name on it on a shelf in a bookshop.

I also remember writing a story about my classmates & my teacher in primary school, I can't remember what age exactly, but the teacher read it out to the class and everyone loved it. In secondary school I wrote (very questionable and embarrassing...) stories about me and my friends (and boys...!) for me and my close friends to read, they lapped them up. So I guess that experience of other people enjoying my writing must have been motivation too.

Piano - As I said, my mum first taught me the basics, on a keyboard initially actually, and then I followed basic tutor books myself, learnt how to read bass clef by myself (I knew treble clef from the violin) and progressed onto harder music gradually etc. I just don't remember WHY I enjoyed playing, I just did, and my mum says I just seemed to “get it” (music notation etc).

At some point in my childhood a family friend came to live with us for a while and brought her piano with her, and I was inspired both by her playing (and the piano itself) and also there was a kid at school who was amazing on the piano, I remember one particular Handel piece that she played that I really liked and I was so pleased to stumble across it in one of my books once and of course set to learning to play it myself... (the most challenging piece I'd tried up to then). So there was inspiration from others with that too.

• What kinds of things did the person with that interest do to develop skills and knowledge related to it?

I spent hours on the piano growing up, and thinking back, even though it was a lot of just playing stuff i enjoyed playing without any real ambition to perfect anything or be really "good" at it (i was literally just playing for fun), I do remember for example at one point deliberately playing hymns a lot because i was still not used to reading/playing chords etc, and hymns was a good way of practicing that skill! As I got older and was playing more challenging pieces, I did get more focused for example playing difficult phrases over & over, or starting a piece at a slow tempo and gradually speeding up, etc. so even though it was "just playing about", I was at the same time very intentional and focused about it.

Writing - Because I dropped the writing in my teens, I'm not sure that there was anything very focused/intentional about the writing I did as a child, all I remember is that I'd have an idea and I'd start typing, and usually abandon the story during Chapter 1 :D I never really got going with proper story planning, for example –the idea of that was boring, I just wanted to write!

I did once decide to write an Enid Blyton-style school story, with a deliberate intention to actually finish it, the one "novel" I did manage to finish because there was a familiar structure that I could follow without thinking too much about it. I still have it, it's total rubbish haha but I was proud at the time that I got it done.

There were also the aforementioned short stories that I sent to a publisher.

I personally think that because writing was so tangled up in school, I did not throw myself into it in the way I did the piano, which was totally separate from anything schoolish. School caused you to think that writing had to be done in a particular way; we had to read particular novels and pick them apart in essays; our own creative writing had to be based on particular themes etc & was then assessed and picked apart too - it all caused the whole thing to become incredibly dull and to feel like hard, painstaking work. Totally the opposite to what I've experienced since while writing.

• Has the interest evolved or changed over time and if so, how?

Writing - As an adult now, it could not be more different. I've started writing again and OH MY that dream that I had in recent years just passed off as a silly childhood whim really genuinely IS what I want to do. Not necessarily get published, but I am LOVING writing, transporting myself to another world, having these characters and story take over and just flow through my pen, seemingly from somewhere other than my own head... I don't have to worry about the quality of the writing, or about it being assessed and marked. I've stopped worrying about having to come up with “original” ideas, too. I am also no longer worrying about it being something “I want to do when I grow up”, as a career (and therefore has to be perfect, worthy, original etc), I am now viewing it as something I love to do in my spare time and that that's OK and enough for now.

I say that I am now writing purely for myself and loving the process, but I am sharing them with a couple of trusted people (close friends & family) in order to get a bit of outside input, and admittedly I can't wait for them to read my latest novel (just completed) – so having an audience, while not the main reason I like writing, does appear to be important to an extent too.

I don't play the piano much any more, partly due to lack of time, partly because my daughter is now on the piano a lot (following in my footsteps!)... I still absolutely LOVE playing the piano and my approach is (or would be) similar to the way it always was - before A level - and one day when I do have more time day to day (and the house to myself more..) I'm sure I'll begin playing a lot more again. Just for fun.

I have harboured a dream for years though, of recording all the pieces I can play as perfectly as possible, to have some sort of record of what I can play, and a goal to work towards. I'd also like to compose music one day too. I will approach that in the same way as the writing – playfully, no pressure.

I am also much more aware now of the importance of taking things in too, as well as producing something. Reading, watching film & TV, listening to music, etc – or anything, really, be it art or gaming or conversation or observing people. I'm also aware of how important the quiet time between active 'doing' is – mulling things over in your head, opening a door in your mind and just letting ideas flow in when you're doing something mundane (quite often my stories develop in my head while I do the washing up!). I've realised that trying to force ideas doesn't work. Forcing it was what happened throughout school and was detrimental to the creative process.

• Did the interest contribute in some way to a career choice (for people who have a career), or does it seem possible that it will eventually contribute to a career (for children and teens or others not yet on a career path)?

Nope. There's a simple reason for this - I KNEW from a young age that school interfered with enjoyment, and because I viewed "career" as an extension of "school" (something we HAVE to do, something that won't necessarily be enjoyable, something that would or should be “hard work”), I wanted to keep the activities I enjoyed well away from any career goal. (Seems so heart breaking now that I thought that way, I realise! I was, though, very envious of peers who knew absolutely what they wanted to do and had a clear path, e.g. lawyer, doctor etc.)

I do really want to change this viewpoint. My job's OK, I enjoy aspects of it but I've always said it's not what I want to be doing the rest of my life/ultimately and that one day I would figure out what I "really want to do when I grow up". I think I actually knew all along – I wanted to be a writer. But it's problematic/very difficult - those aforementioned fears & the impact of school have always held me back from admitting it, because then I'd have to do something real about it. I watched an interview with author Isabel Allende a few days ago and she shows her "office" at home, where she writes all day and I am so envious! BUT, I'm terrified of the idea of putting my stories out there, selling them, having to change them on the whims of editors, having to answer to other people, having the stress of earning money for them and publicising them. I want to play about and feel free, I want them to be for ME and any friends/family who want to read them, I don't want them to become all mixed up with money and pressure and perfectionism. So right now I'm satisfied to be able to earn money in my usual way, and write on the side. I'll have even more time once my daughter has grown up. I may perhaps look into self-publishing, I have a feeling in this day and age there are many more options than the old send a story to a publisher and hope they like it and buy it...

With regards to the piano - or music in general - again I didn't want music, something I loved so much, to become a job, for the same reasons really. With the piano specifically, I knew I couldn't be good enough to be, say, a concert pianist, and I knew I wouldn't enjoy the pressure & nerves that comes with that. Like with writing, playing piano was something that I loved to do, and that was all, and it remains that way to this day.

Anonymous,
I have noticed that there are Kindle Books being sold on Amazon for only $2.
It seems clear that there is no editor to have to satisfy here, and little reason for Amazon to concern themselves with how well your book will sell before listing it as offering.
The question then is: how to draw attention to your book? One way would be to write reviews of the kinds of books that would be of interest to your potential readers and post them on Amazon; readers who like your reviews can go to your "About You" page where you can appropriately mention what you've written. And of course if you have a Facebook page or other blog you can do the same thing there. And if you prefer to preserve your anonymity (as I do) then I believe you can do all of this under a Username.
This is something I'm planning to try myself.
By the way, I am calling these "books", but many are only 40 pages or so. Even for a short story or an essay, $2 isn't much of a risk to read something from an author you're curious about.

One of the first garments (that was wearable) I made was a light weight jacket...think I was about 12 or 13. I remember being interested in Fashion and vintage magazine covers after I spied a beautiful hardcover book of VOGUE vintage magazine covers. I used to draw the ones I loved and dreamed about colors and garments! I really wasn't just passionate about "fashion"--it was more about how things went together; not surprising, geometry was pretty easy for me despite the fact that I spent many nights at the kitchen table sobbing my way through Algebra while my "18yr veteran math teacher Mom" reassured me that I just HAD to learn it! I've never used the algebra or geometry that was taught in school. The math I still use in everyday life I learned via cooking (fractions), sewing & pattern making that I learned in college and thrift shopping (percentage off prices on sale days) with my Mom when I was a teen. My Mom taught me to use a sewing machine, but I don't think she really taught me to sew. I just sat down and went for it (not without some impaled fingers and frustrating mistakes ;) I followed my passion of clothing design when I was pre-teen and pursued it all the way to a career after getting a fashion design degree. The stuff I "had to learn" in school has long been forgotten and I often notice that 99% of the skills & knowledge I use today are those I acquired via job-learning and personal growth. I left the fashion industry to start a family and have done a little bit of specialized garment design off & on since I had children. We chose to start unschooling our children 2 1/2 years ago, and next to marrying my wonderful husband, it is the best decision I could have made! Our lives are so much happier and fulfilled and SIMPLE because we understand that helping our children follow their interests and passions is the most important thing for their happiness!

My current career in software development (programming) began in my childhood as an interest in designing video games. When I was six, my parents got me and my brother a Super Nintendo system with the game Donkey Kong Country for Christmas. I couldn't get enough of the game, so when I completed it I started designing sequels in my sketchbook.

My drawings were cool, but I was left with a sense of disappointment, not being able to bring them to life. I had to wait a couple years before I discovered a Playstation game called "RPG Maker" which provided building blocks for creating my own characters, worlds, and scripts. It was primitive and there wasn't a lot of creative freedom, but it was the mid-90's.

Flash forward another couple of years, when I heard about a PC program called "Game Maker" from a friend. This was a full-blown game development platform that was friendly to beginners. It quickly became the biggest hobby I've ever had -- I made dozens of games in thousands of hours during my preteen and teen years. I taught myself to use the program by experimenting, and in later years I taught myself to write code in Game Maker's build-in programming language by reading tutorials.

When I went to college, I lost interest in video games but retained my love of programming. I took some programming classes and went on to a career in software development after graduating.

Software development is one of those things that is really conducive to self-directed education. In fact it's necessary, as the technology changes so fast, by the time you've mastered a program or a language, it's already obsolete. People learn by experimenting and by reading the stories of others who are documenting the results of their experiments in real time.

This is the same way kids today learn to play video games. Every parent knows that no kid needs a teacher to teach them how to play video games. They just pick it up because they want to. This is a really important skill in the modern economy, and it's important for kids to develop this confidence in themselves that they are able to do anything they set their minds to.

This is very interesting, thank you for posting it. I pulled my son out of school when he was in 2nd grade and we became unschoolers. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a website called Playcrafter (now defunct but it was similar to The Game Maker PC program you described) where he could make his own games. Long story short, he taught himself to code because he was interested in making games on his own, without the safety net and short cuts of the website. He also taught himself graphic arts programs to create the game "sprites" and backgrounds, and became interested in sound/music design. Now, at age 16, he's in a program at a local technology institute. He's still officially a homeschooler so he doesn't attend any other classes beyond this one which is a couple of hours a day. That leaves him plenty of time to work on his own projects and play other video games to get ideas. At the moment, he's thinking of staying at the technology school to get his degree once the high school program is done. My husband and I have encouraged him to pursue this dream or whatever else he becomes interested in after that. I have a degree in the German language, something I was passionate about, which I completed even though I had no practical application for it. I knew I did NOT want to teach, which is what everyone else thought I should do with it. I never had an interest in technology or the kind of logical, math-oriented brain, open to challenges and problem-solving, that my son has. It has been such a thrill to watch my son to teach himself all of these fascinating things and I have learned so much from him. It's truly amazing how children blossom when they are allowed to.

My father gave me his old camera when I was around 12. It was so old it didn't have a light meter in it, and I had to run about with a handheld light meter to take correctly exposed photos. The ability to control an image, to imagine a photo and then make it appear on a print, gave me a measure of power and authorship in my life that I hadn't felt before.

I took a photography class in high school, then another one. Being able to print my own prints in the darkroom, and manipulate them to make them have different moods, was totally exciting. I went on to take photography classes in college, but because school funnels you towards more traditional careers, it never occurred to me that I could become a photographer as a job.

It was only when I was poking about after college looking for a job to pay the rent that I found an ad for a position as a portrait photographer. A whole new world of possibilities opened up for me, and although I've also worked in education and am now homeschooling our children, photography paid the bills for many years, and remains a passion.

Peter, this is a subject that makes Im always distressed to think about.

I believe that school - particularly high school- did several things that hindered my ability to pursue my passions.

Firstly, school is incredibly busy and noisy, with no opportunities for solitude. So if you’re sensitive, or an introvert, it’s an exhausting environment. When I think of my school days I think of noise, and crowds, and feeling stressed and fearful most of the time. And if your hobbies and passions flourish best under quiet conditions, then it’s unlikely that your passion will flourish in a school environment.

As a result of being so tired at school, I had no energy left for extra curricular activities at the end of the day. I had no desire to even see friends or leave the house. I just needed my alone time, and a peaceful place to recharge. So there wasn’t much time to find or follow a passionate interest.

High school certainly did not introduce me to any potential passions or encourage the ones I had.

I loved writing as a kid and won a prize for it. My teachers and parents envisioned a good career for me in fiction writing. However at high school in English class the only form of writing we ever really did was essays. I wrote 2 fictional pieces in 6 years (British high school). I didn’t get good grades in English ( class involved things like critically examining Shakespeare, deconstructing poetry etc), so I concluded that I was no good at writing and for a decade the only things I wrote were essays for school and university and my private diary.

I loved making and decorating objects but my Craft Design and Technology teacher was terrifying, and the subject had a reputation as a “boy’s subject”. When it came time to choose elective courses my CDT teacher advised that I continue with it to a higher level, but the prospect of having a scary teacher while only having male classmates seemed like too much of a daunting prospect.

I’d always dreamed of being an illustrator. People told me I was really good at it (for example my family was friends with a famous artist who saw my drawing of a crowded theatre audience watching a ballet, and was really impressed, saying “this should be in a gallery!”). But art class was focussed on technical proficiency, especially in painting, and not at all focussed on ideas, imagination, character, and producing interesting images.

When I told my final year art teacher I wanted to go to art college he looked at me like I’d sprouted an extra head. He thought of me as just a mediocre student, not remotely a candidate for art school.

Years later I met a successful children’s book illustrator. Like many illustrators his illustrations are charming, funny, and quirky, but don’t display a great deal of technical ability, having instead the childish, “free” quality that so often makes for lively and engaging images. He told me that he wasn’t technically very good and that he only took up painting and discovered his passion for illustrating when he broke his leg and had to take several weeks off school. I had never been jealous of someone breaking their leg before! I think about how much more I could have achieved while lying in a hospital bed, than jumping through endless hoops at school.

Most of all I think creativity is undermined when activities are split into “subjects” rather than “projects”. I liked painting energetic pictures on walls and boxes (my bedroom walls were covered in painted images). I liked combining stories and illustrations. But these were separated into “English: 80 minutes” then “Art: 40 minutes”. Answering questions about Shakespeare, then accurately drawing flower arrangements. Nothing to do with each other.

I haven’t even gotten into how much I loved drama (one primary school teacher said she could see my name in lights one day) and how that passion was wrung out of me in high school (I just wanted to hide away all day until I could go home).

High school seems to be an effort to squash the childish side of people. But that was the part I needed the most: the ability to synthesise ideas and images and objects in unique ways. To get enthused and curious about how to put things together.

I’m slowly trying to rediscover these passions after years of feeling lost and squashed and depressed and passionless.

I’m tired of hearing about how “school is terrible for everyone but that should BUILD your character not crush it, and it’s your own fault for letting it crush you”.

I was a child, is it really OK by us to treat children that way?

And no one gave me a choice to opt out, no one asked “Do you feel like this horrible environment is building your character?”. I would have opted out had I known it were even possible, had there been a viable alternative.

Because the truth is that “it builds character” is the excuse people use to perpetuate a system that hurts children. You can justify ANY hardship with that reasoning - gulags, poverty, the Flint water crisis - but we usually see the absurdity of it. Not when it comes to school though. And I think that’s because deep down, people are scared to question too much. Because it feels so transgressive to say “My parents were wrong, my elders were wrong, I’ve been sending my kids to a harmful institution and we’ve been pumping millions into being wrong for decades; this aspect of society is wrong at a structural level because as a society we are hurting kids”.

If you ARE willing to think it and say it then that makes people see you as a fringe weirdo, and they worry that it’s contagious. They worry that if they start questioning then they’ll end up in a tent holding an “Occupy!” sign, or playing the bongos for other people’s loose change.

Also, kids are resilient. They may not show or understand the damage school until years later.

Apologies for the length of this comment, I suppose you could say I’m passionate about this subject. At least that’s one passion school has given me.

I used to like art. I totally agree about art class. I now hate art. I wish I had never gone because I could have really probably continued it, but nope. School made me compare my specific art skills with other people's, and that made me forget about how I was good at my type of art. But everyone I knew just seemed so good at the "right" type of art. And I don't think I'll like it again.

Sophie. (((Hug)))
Please try not to think of yourself as a fringe weirdo for suggesting schooling is wrong. We do need to stand up for our future generations.
I pulled my two oldest out in first grade because they are very introverted. What hit me hard one day, was when I was volunteering in my son's classroom for a holiday party. The kids were all sugared up. It was loud, and there was my kid, who is autistic, and highly sensitive to sound, standing there looking like he was going to cry. I could see that he was overwhelmed, with a lump in his throat. He looked so lost in the sea of children.
I wanted to bring them home. In fact, I wanted them to always be at home, but their therapist strongly advised me not to home school. I shouldn't have to be a mother and a teacher to special needs kids. It would be too much.
I was a young mother, and was rarely taken serious with my ideas on raising kids, so even while chosing what I felt was right still made me feel as if I was that fringe wierdo who could potentially be screwing my children up.
If I would have been your mother, seeing you so tapped out each day after school, I would have wanted to pull you from school too.
What irks me so, so much, is that most people expect children to work a full time schooling job, sports, homework, chores, socialize, deal with peer pressure and bullying, whether they will be safe or not and we wonder why teens are so depressed! Oh! Don't forget hormones!
Passion= a piece of happiness. It's a chance to truly learn, because the mind is open and accepting of the information.
In our family, we are passion seekers, which often lead us to find new passions. It's freedom of the mind.
If adults know better about how they come into their true passions, they certainly SHOULD advocate the shift for starting with a passion for a subject. Then tailor their learning needs to suit the child.
It's simple.

Thank you for your kind words, S. I don’t think of myself as a fringe weirdo these days but growing up I felt ashamed and did think of myself that way. I think there’s something about many people’s mindsets that makes them unwilling or unable to question a given social system. I think if you’re one of the “winners” under a system, you don’t think about how it unfairly advantages you (the way school might tend to benefit extroverts over introverts) and disadvantages others (like for example the highly sensitive). People like to think they earn what they have and if others don’t have it then it must be their own moral failing that’s to blame.

I’m not autistic (as far as I know) but I have some characteristics associated with high sensitivity and I get overwhelmed easily by noise and crowds. I can only imagine how hard school would have been for your autistic son. I’m glad you followed through on what you knew was best for him. I think that’s very brave of you.

In fairness to my mother, I don’t think I came across as exhausted to her. Whenever I came home after school I’d be really happy and bubbly. I loved singing and knew entire musical scores by heart and I’d sing them in the shower for as long as I could hog the bathroom. The reason I seemed so happy at home was because, well, I was really happy to be home: a quiet safe environment with only a few people after the chaos of the school day. I sang for a long time because it was my only chance to express myself after hours of being heavily monitored and trying to fit in. It was being around lots of people that exhausted me; being alone or close to it recharged me. My parents probably saw this lively kid, smiling and belting out showtunes, and thought I was the same way at school, too.

You’re right, it IS simple - so simple that it’s almost an achievement how much we’ve managed to mangle the learning process.

Sophie said
"I think if you’re one of the “winners” under a system, you don’t think about how it unfairly advantages you ..."

That is so true. When I first discovered John Holt and the possibility of unschooling back in the early 80's, I had a lot of contact with University college students. When I attempted to share this interest with others, very rarely a person would be intrigued and want to hear more about it, even while bringing up possible concerns. That person would typically become a friend. Mostly I was just met by blank stares - this from students who would have quite comfortably discussed Karl Marx. Once I was met with an immediate angry frown and that question of the ages "What about their socialization?" My interpretation of all this: they had submitted to the system and in return the system had declared them to be winners; they weren't going to bite the hand that fed them. Among fellow math students I would ask: did they not feel that the way that math had been presented in high school was bizarrely divorced from the real spirit of mathematics - a set of disconnected rules and techniques handed down on the basis of authority, rather than revealing anything of its beauty or connectedness? Yes, they would shrug, but it wasn't difficult and it had been easy for them to get A's, so what's the big deal? One person was able to get what I was saying when I answered "How would you like to be compelled to take a philosophy class?" (Most math types value precise thinking, and find the vagueness of philosophy to be disconcerting.)
Of course everybody has their own thing. The schools shouldn't be compelling those whose interest is in philosophy, or art, or music, or storytelling, or dance, or sports, or anything else for that matter to learn algebra when that simply doesn't interest them. And probably compelling them to do so is why the high school math curriculum looks the way it does: a series of parrot tricks.

First, I would like to say that school really does hinder passion-building (if that's what one would call it). For a long time, I have loved music and recently I've become interested in multilingualism. I barely have time, though. Now on to the story about my passion for music.

It first appeared when I was around 2 or 3. I lived in a city at the time (by the way, I'm just trusting my dad's memory of this because I don't really remember myself.) and often when I was out with my dad I would stop and watch street performers. I began to be very interested in guitar.

At the time, I had a toy red ukulele that I thought of as a guitar and started playing--and, to an extent, writing--music on it. It didn't sound that good at first.

This next part I remember quite vividly. When I was in kindergarten, I liked Bob Dylan. So I tried playing it on my ukulele. But it didn't sound right. My dad suggested that it might be because I was on a ukulele instead of a guitar. So I saved up enough money to eventually buy one. And so I had my own guitar.

My dad played too and he helped me, but my guitar (most of my music, actually) was self-taught. I, of course, went through a phase where I didn't pick it up for a while, but I always came back, and I always liked music. I soon became interested in performing and composing, and started doing that. Later, I learned (this was the part that wasn't self-taught) to play cello and taught myself a bit of piano. Now I write music electronically, I occasionally compose some more orchestral stuff too, though.

I do not yet know what my career will be, but I hope to be a self-employed composer (that would be my ideal job).

But schoolwork has now left me with no time to do this. I am working a "9 to 9 unpaid job" if you know what I mean. I've been trying to sell unschooling to my parents, but to no avail (It wouldn't be able to be complete unschooling anyway due to state laws anyway).

And that's my life story! (just kidding there's more to my life but music is a big part of it)

I have long had an interest in the natural world, and as a child and young teen I devoured books on the taxonomy of local reptiles and amphibians. My interest was nurtured by my parents, who loved spending time outdoors, and by after school activities. I went to nature camps on every holiday and I had plenty of free time to observe species in our yard and the surrounding woods. I also loved to read, even academic literature.
I always use this as an astonishing example of how detailed and professional self-directed learning can be. As an 11-year old, my knowledge of reptiles and other local species, their life cycles and habitats, their local populations and their taxonomical names was much greater than of any biology teacher I encountered, and I can still remember that knowledge today.
This is just one example of specific interests. I was also fascinated with any scientific or cultural knowledge of ecosystems and the part humans play in it. Through my playful and close encounter with nature, I developed a strong and deep emotional connection with my environment, a sense of my place in the world.
This has not only helped me psychologically, but has also been the basis of any academic knowledge I have aquired. I went on the study Earth Sciences (for a teaching degree) and I feel like I have understood many concepts or remembered many facts based on my connection to the natural world because I can often apply or connect it with a real-life experience. These experiences are the basis of my success in college, much more so than my high school career.
Despite everything I have learned in school or every academic or career path I have taken, I have always come back to these experiences and connected with them in a new way. At the moment I mostly work in environmental education, so it seems like I have the urge to give back what has profoundly shaped me.

At school I tended to really feel the pressure and longer to please. Outside school I was very involved in my church and youth group and this took up most of my passionate side. By the time I finished my 12 years of school I really didn't have a clue what my passions were in terms of a career. I had achieved the top academic grades in my standard but the only identity I knew was as a Christian. I enjoyed doing photography as an extra mural, enjoyed the practical side of art and enjoyed English the most out of my subjects. So I thought either photography, graphic design or journalism were my options. In my second last year of school we got to have 3 days work experience and I spent mine feeling very out of place at a film school where everyone dressed and behaved very differently from me! I eventually decided to do a "gap" year after I broke down and went to hospital due to school stress.

I spent my gap year continuing my involvement in church and attending a Bible college. I came top in the college academically but did not enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Every Thursday we had to do "outreach" and I was placed at an old age home. I found myself enjoying visiting the elderly and there was a couple in their nineties who I developed a very special bond with and visited every week whether or not it was term or holidays. I had a revelation toward the end of the year to do "community development" with the idea that I wanted to help people. So I applied to do a Bachelor of Social Sciences. (This came after applying to do teaching and being accepted and then backing out at the last minute. My mom thought I could do it while at Bible college and encouraged me to apply after watching "Matilda" and me commenting that I wouldn't mind being a teacher of young children like Miss Honey.)

I really enjoyed my first year at university and living with 5 other girls. I enjoyed more freedom within my studies and did well. I thought I would major in Education and Development and Psychology and then work for am NGO. But then a month before I was due to start my second year I went to a party where the topic of elderly folk came up. I spoke about how I would love to take care of the elderly and how nursing is such a noble profession to me. I had never thought these things consciously before and the people I spoke to said that they would not like that sort of vocational which surprised me. When I got home I relayed these conversations to my younger sister who became very excited and announced that I would make a perfect nurse and that I had to do it. This got me very excited and the next day she announced it to my parents. I had honestly never considered this profession before and didn't know a single nurse. I was accepted due to my high grades despite application dates being long passed and found myself on another campus studying nursing as the new academic year started.

I completed my 4 years despite many others leaving and did a year of community service as required. My love for the elderly remained despite other nurses finding this strange. I preferred chronic wards to acute and didn't cope well with death. Nursing once qualified in hospital was so demanding in terms of admin, meds and doctors that I was not feeling satisfied anymore. I missed the patient care. I ended up working for an old age home for 3 years but unfortunately it was a night post which never changed. Then I got married and fell pregnant and the journey of meeting my little girl inspired me not to return after maternity leave and instead study to become a lactation consultant.

I now find myself passionate about motherhood, unschooling, breastfeeding and alternative health.

I have had so many passions throughout my life, that perhaps I don't know what it is. I'm in my 30's and only recently (two years ago) discovered and processed the damage done to me by school.

My mother was an avid reader. Our home was like a library. I learned to read early and preferred books before people through my childhood. I did my older brother's homework before I even started school. School was easy, all I had to do was read a lot of books. I got the best grades and the teachers all imagined a brilliant future for me. I graduated, and found myself completely lost. Now what? For ten years after school I had no real job, I quit most of the ones I got because they all killed my soul a little bit. I tried higher education but wasn'rt very interested in anything.

Then I had a child, and it turned my life around. I envisioned her future, the life I had wanted for myself and never reached. Then I realized I should live that life myself, be a role model. I started actively soul searching for my passions, this time with an important purpose. But I'm still not sure what I'm truly passionate about.

I love reading and writing. As a 5 year old I dreamed of becoming a published author. I still do, and I believe I will write a book within five years. School let me continue reading, but interfered with what and when. School never presented author as a viable career choice. I hated essays, writing about random subjects for no good reason. I knew I would ace every essay anyway, the teacher knew I could write flawlessly, so it felt pointless and prevented me from doing what I really wanted.

I love music and singing. I was going to be a pop star when I grew up. I wrote my own songs, and I sing daily to myself and with my family. Pop star is not a viable career option in school. There was hardly any music in school. I tried taking piano lessons and I learned how to read sheets, but I can't improvise at all.

I love creating visually pleasant things. Drawings, scrapbooks, website designs, paintings, furniture, anything you can see really. Art. That's the career path I followed in school, learning digital software and design principles. I have never worked a day as a designer.

As a child I created music and visual art and stories through programming. Early 90's, the language was called QBASIC. When social media emerged I created visually pleasant profile pages, learning web programming. As a teenager I got romantically involved with a programmer, we spent our time after school programming fun things. At first tools to analyze games to win better. Then games. Then websites about games.

I now teach web development through several programming languages, a job I got through practical skills acquired through play rather than education. I have never programmed in class.

I'm also passionate about non-coercive parenting, self-directed education, environmental sustainability, languages, animals, and several other things. None of which school created nor nourished.

As child I was curious and loved reading: different encyclopedias, poetry, children’s books and adult novels, medical books.
I did ok at school, not the brightest student but always in the best 20% of the class I suppose.
Overall I really enjoyed learning but boredom of the school teaching methods and horrible teachers just did their job, by the time I was a teen I had no passion connected to the school curriculum.
I remember suffering along with other on those endless geography, history, physics lessons…
Also among my friends at school it was absolutely not popular to be a 'nerd' and to excel at anything apart from chasing boys and going to disco parties and maybe fighting with other teenagers??? I know it sounds awful.
I did sports as a child until I was 14 and competed on a national level but had no real passion for it.
I did enjoy some aspects of it though, however I have wasted far too much time practicing for competitions in a sport I knew I had no real natural talent for and no real motivation for.
When I was 6 or 7 I discovered a new passion which I had carried ever since but which was left mostly unfulfilled. It was music.
I remember starting to be interested in piano that we had at home. Unfortunately I was not allowed music lessons as I was already doing the sport i did not choose for myself and listening to kids’ opinion on things was not really a thing in my family.
I remember wanting to take lessons so badly but feeling totally hopeless.
As a teenager I enjoyed singing and playing guitar. I still do. I teach myself piano (I can read music).
But my favourite instrument is a violin. I have taken this up at the age of 28 or so and took some lessons. The feeling I have when I play is just hard to capture (although I am not a virtuoso to say the least as you can imagine since I started so late). It is a pure transcendental joy, it is almost like meditation in a way. There is something deeply magical about this instrument that touches me inside, that I do not have with other instruments. The sounds is absolutely healing (although it can be most frustrating when I am having a bad day and can’t play this or that). And I am just a beginner of course but I am not giving up on playing a violin now ever and planning to start lessons again. I had to stop lessons due to pregnancy and having a baby and other family issues..
I just remember this almost religious awe I had in front of musical instruments and I really regret I had no opportunity to pursue violin or piano as a child seriously. I do not know where this passion came from. I honestly think I was not allowed to follow my inner voice in this respect.
Anyway to continue with my story
I was forced by my parents to study a degree in social sciences. It was somehow considered prestigious and they thought I could then get a well-paid job. Haha, this could not be further from the truth.
When I was finishing school I had a dim idea of what I wanted to do. And because education is paid in my country (unless you get a grant which is really hard) I had to succumb to my parents’ wishes. And anyway I would not be allowed to try to do it my own way so why even bother I thought…
Since then I completed MA degree in the same subject in the UK at a good university and discovered the world of social sciences as well interest for philosophy and psychology (the latter two more thanks to my husband0.
I have always had a special feeling for injustice so I think study of history, a bit of economics, philosophy, political science had opened up a treasure chest of knowledge. Reading all those works of philosophy, politics etc. and seeing more clearly why things are the way they are. Seeing more questions than answers is challenging and exhilarating.
I have also taken on other hobbies like hiking/mountain climbing. I think my childhood sports experience came in handy. I think you need to be a bit masochistic when you are putting yourself through those super-tiring hikes but I knew the feeling of pushing my body and I enjoyed it.
So on the one hand I am grateful for the experiences I had and the opportunities I had but on the other hand I feel I missed out on other things..
I have gained a lot insight on how the society operates and I feel really privileged but on the other hand just pursuing a Phd would not be motivating enough.
I always felt something was missing although I could get lost in those books, ideas and theories for long time.
I think I have been going through a midlife crisis recently and thinking what I should have done. I have been recently obsessed with the idea I should have become a doctor.
I recall my childhood obsession with medical books. I still like reading on the subject. This job does tick a lot of boxes but at the same time there was a reason why I never really considered this option.
I remember asking my cousin who is a doctor about her med school experience and her mentioning ‘oh no it is tough don’t go there, some students dropped out after we started dissections’. Dead bodies and death in general was really scary for me when I was a child or a teen. So I just thought I could never do this anyway…Plus this is a low paid job back in my country and hence very unpopular at the time (and even now). Maybe I was never cut out for it anyway. But at least in theory it sounds like an ideal job if you have the guts to do it. Fulfilling and intellectually stimulating, challenging and really hands on job and dealing with people and helping people as well which I like. Huh, I know I am probably idealising it a lot as an outsider.
I keep thinking about the my path every day when I am in my boring low paid full-time job. And frankly I am dreading the day when I will be so old and I will feel ‘oh no I have failed to discover my purpose in life, to fulfil my true potential and now it is too late’